


Man, Made

by biswholocked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Community: holmestice, M/M, Post The Great Game, Science Fiction, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biswholocked/pseuds/biswholocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>human:<br/>[hyoo-muh n or, often, yoo‐] adjective 1. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or having the nature of people: human frailty.</p><p>In which Sherlock struggles with what it means to be human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man, Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JolinarJackson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JolinarJackson/gifts).



> Written for Holmestice Summer 2015. This was my first time participating, and I enjoyed myself immensely! In their signup JolinarJackson mentioned that they liked interactions/ relationships between characters-- hopefully they like this! Beta'ed by the lovely kedgeree11, who made this so much better and made my first experience with a beta a great one :)

“I will burn the _heart_ out of you.”

“I’ve been reliably informed I don’t have one,” Sherlock replies evenly, secure in the certainty of his inhumanity if nothing else.

“But we both know that’s not quite true,” Moriarty says with a small, secretive smile and a glance towards John. As Sherlock stands there, hard drive rapidly processing information, he gropes for understanding and turns up blank.

When Moriarty disappears (for certain, this time), Sherlock lowers the gun; he tells himself his hands are steady, because machines do not _shake_. Somehow, they leave the pool - abandoning the semtex like an unwanted toy - and catch a cab on the main road. John doesn’t speak, but Sherlock watches him count his breaths and clench his fists, all signs of controlling fear. He wonders if John will have nightmares. (Thinks it likely.) He doesn’t ask.

John fumbles with his keys, but eventually gets the door open. The sound of their feet upon the stairs is muffled by tension, and when they reach the dark flat John melts into the shadows, the floor creaking slightly as he goes up to his own bedroom. Sherlock stands in the doorway for a long, hollow moment, then with heavy hands drapes his coat over its hook and stumbles to the couch, where he lets himself collapse with a soft sigh.

He lies there, chest moving in shallow, aborted breaths, staring into the black; with his visual input levels decreased, his hearing becomes more sensitive. He strains to fill his mind with sounds of the city outside. Tries to ignore the barely-audible whirs and clicks coming from his chest, the ever-present reminders of his true condition. He fails, and his artificial heart keeps him awake as the darkness around him presses in close.

 __________

Sherlock wasn’t born. He was _made_. His father explains it to him first, after Sherlock takes his first breath and blinks up at a tan, weathered face peering down at him. _Hello, Sherlock. No need to be afraid-- it’s all quite simple._

But Sherlock doesn’t remember much of that time - his body was just coming alive after all, and even his brain couldn’t recall everything - so when sleep is evading him and self-deprecation is whispering vile things in his ears, it is Mycroft’s voice instead of his father’s that comes back to him, cold and imperious as it describes how Sherlock came to be.

_You aren’t like other children. You may look the same, you may act the same, but you never will be the same as the rest of them. And it would do you good to remember that, because caring is never, ever an advantage._

Sherlock smiles without amusement. Look where he’s ended up.

__________

He is still battling insomnia when John creaks down the stairs just after dawn, less than seven hours after he went up. Sherlock closes his eyes and listens to him make tea (two cups; it is always two cups, now) and counts the seconds John waits for the tea to brew. Three and a half minutes; Sherlock has recorded all of John’s activities and the average time it takes for John to complete them. Tea is always the most precise.

John sets Sherlock’s tea on the coffee table with a sigh.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

Sherlock is tempted to voice his deductions about John’s own sleep patterns last night (jerked himself out of a REM cycle three times because of nightmares - as predicted, restless), but is too bone-weary for an argument.

“No,” he murmurs.

John settles into his armchair with a soft groan. His arm and leg must have been aggravated last night, Sherlock realises, and curses himself for being so slow. He should have noticed earlier. (Stupid, _useless_ brain. Stupid, _useless_ heart, for being compromised.)

“Why?”

Sherlock flounders for an answer. “Needed to catalogue the data,” he says, but it is weak, even to his own ears. John sits silently with his tea, waiting.

“I couldn’t.”

Sherlock can picture John’s frown with ease. “What do you mean, you couldn’t?”

Sherlock opens his eyes and glares at the ceiling as he snaps out his words. “I mean that I _couldn’t_. I was unable to shut down.” His fingers, steepled together, twitch with the urge to close themselves into fists.

“Shut down?” John echoes again. “You aren’t a machine, Sherlock. If you’re having trouble--”

_You aren’t a machine._

_You are a machine, little brother._

“Shut up,” Sherlock growls, flinging himself off the couch. His mind is churning with thoughts, demands, suppositions, uncertainties, he can feel his heart ticking out its beats. “Shut. Up!” He’s reaching down for his tea, and the mug is flung across the room; it’s only in the silence after it shatters against the wall that Sherlock realises it was him.

Breath coming harshly, Sherlock flees, letting the door slam behind him.

_________

Sherlock asks his father The Question. He is a wide-eyed, precocious nine year old ~~boy~~ android, running round the backyard at all times of the day, collecting samples and conducting experiments. Father is the smartest person he knows (even smarter than Mycroft).

“Father, why did you make me?”

They are lying in a field on a hot summer afternoon, staring up at the clouds. The smell of grass fills Sherlock’s nose, the heat presses down on him. A long moment and one small cloud pass by before Father speaks.

“Your mother and I wanted to have another child, but a few years after your brother was born, mother got sick.”

“She couldn’t have children anymore?”

“Exactly so. We considered adoption, but eventually we decided that we’d only have one child. Then, about three years or so ago, your mother came up with the idea. And so we drew out plans, and read studies, and worked very, very hard. And now here you are.”

Sherlock thinks about that for a moment, then sits up so he can look Father in the eye. “But why can I feel things? I thought robots could only think, but I still feel things.” He puts a hand on his chest. “They make something ache right here.”

Father sits up beside him and smiles gently as he answers. “You aren’t just a robot, Sherlock,” he assures him, and ruffles Sherlock’s curls.

It isn’t much of an answer, and Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, but Mummy’s voice from the house telling them to come inside if they want lunch interrupts him.

_________

Sherlock thunders down the stairs and out onto Baker Street, ignoring the sound of John calling his name. It’s pouring rain, and Sherlock knows he’ll be soaked through in only a minute, but he forges on. He ignores the chill that invades him with stubborn determination; machines do not feel cold, machines do not feel guilt, machines do not need coats or umbrellas. He walks through Regent’s Park, abandoned except a few dog owners dragged out into the downpour. His shoes squelch uncomfortably with each step, until he sits on a bench and simply lets the rain come down, loud enough to hide the sound of his breathing. He closes his eyes and pretends that he is a statue, unmoving, at the mercy of the weather but not of anything else.

 _You aren’t a machine, Sherlock_ , John’s (kind, sad, frustrated, concerned) voice echoes; Sherlock squeezes his eyes more tightly shut and mentally shakes his head at the image of John behind his eyelids.

_You’re wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I am not human, not like you except in outward appearance._

His phone rings, shockingly loud. Sherlock fishes it out of his pocket and stands, then throws it as far he possibly can. He hears the clatter of it against the ground somewhere far away. Sits again. _What if it was John?_ his mind chastises, and Sherlock clenches his jaw.

 _It_ _doesn’t matter_ , he tells himself viciously, closing his eyes. _I don’t care_.

He lets his fingers curl in on themselves and feels his nails digging into his palms; the pain is resolutely dismissed and Sherlock only presses harder, until he is certain he’s broken his synthetic skin.

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock glances up through the curls plastered to his face and catches sight of John, a blurry figure through the rain. He has an umbrella, but it hasn’t done much against the wind; Sherlock can hear him cursing as he comes closer.

Sherlock wants to run, wants to disappear, wants to reach inside his chest and force his heart to stop pounding, to stay where it ought instead of sliding up into his throat. Before he can command his legs to move, though, John is there, vibrating with anger.

“Jesus, Sherlock. You’re going to catch cold, sitting out here while it’s pouring down rain,” he mutters, and tugs on Sherlock’s wrist until he’s standing, crouched under the umbrella (for all the good it does). “We’re going home. Do not argue, do not even-- just. I have a cab waiting. God knows I’ll have to double the fare just for the wet seats, but do not say a word until we get home because I swear I am this close,” John says, holding his fingers about a centimetre apart, “to punching you.”

John keeps a hold on Sherlock’s wrist as he hurries out of the park, and Sherlock can’t help but take note of the ring of warmth where John’s skin touches his own.

John is silent in the cab, even when the cabbie curses at them for the water on the seats; he pays the fare without protest, makes his way up the stairs and doesn’t look back. He leaves Sherlock in the doorway, dripping, and Sherlock stands waiting until he comes back, dressed in new clothes. John sighs at the sight of him.

“Do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?” he demands, then shakes his head. “No, don’t answer that. Of course you bloody don’t. I knew it from the start but--” John cuts himself off with a deep breath and clenches his fists before letting them release. It’s one of John’s most obvious tells, and it makes Sherlock’s stomach roil with anger and fear as John speaks again.

“Just, go dry off. Put some new clothes on, I’ll check you over, and then get some bloody sleep, okay?” John nods sharply at Sherlock’s silence, then turns away, the line of his shoulders looking sharp enough to cut.

Sherlock slides past him, leaving behind a puddle, and shuts himself away in his bedroom. He peels off his clothes and hangs them over the radiator, then rubs himself dry with a terrycloth towel. By the time he slips into a pair of pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, shivers are dancing across his skin and making his teeth chatter together.

He digs out another duvet from the closet and spreads it out onto the bed before burrowing under the covers. Everything is muffled, now, leaving him in a familiar cocoon of warmth, the closest thing Sherlock had to feeling safe. (Before John.)

There’s a knock on the door; Sherlock closes his eyes and ignores John’s voice coming from behind the wood, disappearing into his own mind.

_________

“For God’s sake, Sherlock,” Mycroft snaps, looking at him over the top of his book with a frown. “Stop whinging like a child and leave me alone!”

“It itches,” Sherlock says stubbornly, crossing his arms. “Under my skin, everything itches. How am I supposed to conduct my experiments?”

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “Your ‘experiments’ consist of combining different chemicals to see if you can blow something up. I should think Mummy would thank me for ensuring you didn’t.”

“But--”

“And besides that,” Mycroft continues, speaking over Sherlock’s protest, “I can’t do anything about it. You know that Father is the only one who can update you.”

Sherlock looks away from Mycroft’s imperiously raised eyebrow and _hmphs_ softly, cross.

“You’ll simply have to endure until he comes home from his business trip tomorrow. Now, kindly get out.”

Sherlock leaves (being sure to slam Mycroft’s door behind him), and wanders the house, occasionally checking on his newly-constructed mind palace. The prickling feeling though, persists, shattering his concentration. It’s _hateful_. This is hardly an abnormal occurrence - he’s needed an update for each year he’s existed - but he has never had to wait for Father to come home so they could walk out to the shed and power Sherlock off while Father makes any necessary adjustments (usually quite a lot, considering Sherlock’s age and his tendency to poke his nose where it wasn’t always welcome).

Sherlock makes his way up to the attic, and spends some time inspecting dust patterns, trying to relegate the itching to the furthest corner of his mind. He lasts half an hour before he gives up and resigns himself to lying on the thick Persian rug in the downstairs parlour.

 _What happens when Father is gone, for good?_ he wonders, but is unable to find an answer.

_________

Sherlock shifts between the darkness of sleep and the blurred edge of waking over and over, losing track of time. There is a periods of noise followed by quiet, and sometimes he thinks he hears John talking to him from the hall. All of it fades away into unimportance, and Sherlock allows apathy to wash over him, savouring the numbness after so much sharp-edged confusion.

The peace is broken when someone knocks loudly on Sherlock’s door, then pushes it open. Footsteps walk closer, along with the telling tap of an umbrella. The bed dips when Mycroft perches on the edge, and Sherlock can feel his body being shifted closer even as he curls up tighter, trying to stay away.

“John appears to be quite concerned about your behaviour since the Moriarty incident,” Mycroft remarks casually.

 _John_. The carefully-cultivated armour around Sherlock’s heart groans under the weight of the word (that _name_ , that _man_ ), but Sherlock obstinately pushes the emotion away. It is useless, he reminds himself.

Mycroft sighs disappointedly, and Sherlock can easily imagine the pinched expression that accompanies it. “At least tell me whether you’re disengaging because it’s time for an update.”

Sherlock doesn’t open his mouth, but something (and it has always frustrated him, this ability Mycroft seems to have to just know) tips Mycroft off to Sherlock’s answer.

“Good,” he says, standing. “I didn’t think it was time, but you have been nothing if not unpredictable. I shall take my leave, but do get out of bed soon. Inspector Lestrade still needs your statement for the bomber case, and though he may be used to your...moods, Doctor Watson is quite a different story.”

Mycroft leaves, failing to close the door completely; light from the hall invades the room, and Sherlock resigns himself to getting up. Moving like a fly caught in solidifying amber, he drags himself out of bed, taking the duvet with him as he goes. He leaves the lights in the bathroom off, and locks both the doors before taking off his clothes. Operating through touch and memory, he runs his hands across his skin and his vulnerable spots: one on the nape of his neck - just covered by his hair - and the other a seam running down his chest, checking that nothing was damaged by the downpour. He doesn’t find any issues, other than the row of crescent-shaped marks on each of his palms; Sherlock makes a mental note to apply some of his cell-regeneration cream on it later. By the time he’s finished, detangled his curls, and donned a fresh suit, he can almost feel the efficiency being transmitted through his wiring.

He checks his reflection, then starts toward the door.

_________ 

When Sherlock is fifteen and home on summer holiday, he breaks into the shed and discovers the details of his origins. He finds notebooks filled with notes and diagrams, pictures pinned to bulletin boards, and devours them with the hunger of a young man starved for answers.

_Subject one: failure. Reason: inefficient internal mechanics._

_Subject two: failure. Reason: synthetic skin._

_Subject three: failure. Reason: faulty nervous system wiring._

Sherlock blinks, assimilating the information in front of him, and feels a shard of ice melt down his spine. Holding his breath, he keeps going.

 _Subject four. Subject five. Failure. Failure_.

Five. Five Sherlock Holmes before him, of varying ages, mental capacity, constructed with different hard drives, wiring, synthetic bones and organs and skin. All of them gone, decommissioned. Sherlock looks down at his hands, dispassionately observing the tremor that makes them shake; he wonders if Father used scrap from the others to make him, how much of him is comprised of those that came before him.

Sherlock puts everything back precisely where he found it, then slips out of the shed, making sure to lock the door behind him. He cuts across the backyard, squeezes through the gap between two hedges, and emerges in the field just before the woods. He begins by walking, but before he realises it Sherlock is running, air ripping through his artificial lungs, chest heaving, and doesn’t stop until he’s crossed into the shelter of the forest, far enough away to lose sight of the house. He pulls himself up into the branches of a tree, and sits huddled by the trunk, burying his hands in his hair and pulling hard enough to make him wince.

He tells himself it doesn’t matter, but Sherlock can’t banish the images from his mind. He stays in the tree until it is too dark to see, then stumbles home and locks himself away in his room for two days.

He never tells anyone what he saw.

_________

John is in the living room, sitting in his chair with his back turned to Sherlock. Sherlock takes a deep breath before he steps into John’s line of sight.

“Your tea’s brewing on the counter,” are the first words out of John’s mouth, and Sherlock finds himself (relieved) releasing the breath on a soft sigh. Sherlock obediently shuffles into the kitchen and adds milk and sugar to his tea, then brings it back into the sitting room, perching in the corner of the sofa. Silence reigns, but Sherlock can tell (thinks he can tell) it’s different than the last they’d had, in the cab home; still, he finds himself desperately casting about for something to say.

“Lestrade wants my statement,” he says, and internally winces at the question that colours it.

John looks at him for a long, steady moment, takes a sip of his tea. “He hasn’t gotten my statement yet, either.”

“Yes, well.” Sherlock looks down at his tea, then raises it to his lips and takes a drink, savouring the warmth. “Should do that soon. I’m sure Lestrade will be grateful.”

John’s gaze meets his own, one eyebrow raised dubiously. “Breakfast first,” he says firmly, and Sherlock makes a point to purse his lips, though he doesn’t voice an argument.

Halfway through his cup of tea, John stands and disappears into the kitchen, and Sherlock listens to him rummaging through their cabinets and fridge.

“Looks like it’ll be eggs and toast,” John calls, and Sherlock makes a noncommittal noise in response. He couldn’t care less about eating, honestly; he needs to to survive, yes, because the complex system of prosthetic organs inside him work in mostly the same ways a human’s do, but he doesn’t need sustenance nearly as often.

Still, Sherlock thinks as he stands and meanders into the kitchen, it’d probably do him some good. (Won’t admit to himself that he could go another day without, because acquiescing just to keep someone - John - close, make them _happy_ , isn’t something a machine ~~would~~ could do.)

_________

Father dies when Sherlock is twenty-one. He is taken by a heart attack; it is unexpected, and so too is the five AM phone call Sherlock receives at uni, his mother’s voice wavering on the other end of the line as she passes on the news.

Sherlock listens, then hangs up without a word. He spends the next week buried in his textbooks (though more often he is re-reading the instructions Father gave him last year for his birthday on how to self-update, telling him with pride, “I love you”). Sherlock considers skipping the funeral, but in the end shows up, dressed in the stiffest suit he owns and a tie that feels as if it’s about to tighten itself and choke him. Father is buried in the family plot, beside his own father, by a priest that had met Mister Holmes exactly once.

Mummy cries; Mycroft stoically holds an umbrella over her to protect her from the drizzle. Sherlock hates everything about the day with a passion he hasn’t felt before for anything. The air is heavy with the smell of perfume and dying flowers, and Sherlock makes it half an hour before he escapes, winding through the headstones until he makes it to the main road. He walks, through mud and puddles leftover from yesterday’s showers, until he can see his childhood home up ahead. The back gate is as easy to scale as it ever was, so Sherlock climbs over.

The shed door creaks as it swings open, but the familiar scent of oil and wood serves to draw Sherlock in; it is ridiculous and sentimental, that _this_ is the place that calms the ball of festering grief that is occupying Sherlock’s stomach. _Look_ , he tells himself as he runs his fingers over the walls, sits in Father’s chair. _There is nothing of him to be found here, no love to comfort you. You are still only an experiment, marginally more successful but still problematic._

Except. There is a new entry in Father’s old notebook.

 _Subject six: Success_.

_________ 

Things go on. Sherlock solves cases, John blogs about them, the two of them bicker about Sherlock’s experiments. Lestrade sighs with frustration, Mrs Hudson tuts with exasperated affection. Moriarty hides himself away until even the whispers fade. Everything is fine.

 _________

Cocaine wreaks havoc on Sherlock’s systems; perhaps this is why he finds a way to acquire it as often as he can, desperate for another hit. When the rush hits him, his heart whirs faster and faster, and Sherlock fancies that he can feel the electrical pulses sparking brighter than ever under his skin. Cocaine tastes like a hard drive melting under strain, the sharp precipice of a cliff, and Sherlock covets the chance to tumble off the edge.

(Eventually, he does.)

_________

“Oh.”

Sherlock freezes, eyes wide, and lets his brain flick over the evidence once again to confirm his theory; everything is there, slotting into place like the last part to a 500-piece puzzle.

“You’ve got it.” The words are a question but John states them as a fact, and Sherlock gives him a bright smile as he turns away from the web of string and notes and photos above the sofa.

“Of course,” Sherlock replies with confidence. John’s gaze meets his and Sherlock rather thinks the sparks between them are visible.

“Who is it, then?”

Sherlock steps closer, enough to make John tilt his head up slightly to maintain eye contact. Sherlock instinctively takes a fraction of a second to burn the data onto his memory, then speaks, deductions falling from his lips while he tries to push his heart back into place.

“Brilliant,” John breathes, tongue darting out to lick his lips, and Sherlock wrenches himself away, turning back to the conglomeration of reports and statements. It’s ludicrous, the way Sherlock covets John’s attention, and he brutally reminds himself of that as he continues.

When he’s finished and the mystery lies unravelled between them, there is a beat of silence as he looks over his shoulder, and then John is grinning at him, the one he gets when danger is right around the corner.

“I will never get tired of this,” John laughs, and Sherlock smiles back as he sails over to the door and swings his coat off its hook. John is right behind him, phone out to text Lestrade; their footsteps fall in sync as they race down the stairs, and Sherlock makes a futile attempt to shove away the fluttering wings in his stomach.

(And so they go on.)

_________

The day that marks his twenty-ninth year of animation finds him at a crime scene, inspecting blood spatter patterns with his magnifier. He spends a stimulating three days chasing down the killer; at the end, Lestrade drags him to a pub (“you have to eat, you mad bastard”) and watches with a sharp gaze as Sherlock pokes at an order of fish and chips.

“How’ve you been?” he asks after, tone deliberately casual. Sherlock narrows his eyes and frowns.

“Say what you mean, or don’t bother with it at all.” Sherlock wants to be home, cataloguing data and hibernating. (He is unsure why he allowed Lestrade to manhandle him into coming; doesn’t want to examine below the surface, acknowledge any hint of sentiment.)

Lestrade scrubs a hand down his face with a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. Are you still clean?”

“Does your fiancee know that you spend your nights with sociopaths instead of going home?”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade says, sharply; Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” he finally answers, and takes a drink from the glass of water Lestrade insisted he empty.

Lestrade picks up his pint of beer, but doesn’t raise it to his lips. “You could tell me, if you’re having trouble. You know that, right?”

“I assure you, Lestrade, I’m quite finished with my dalliance with hard drugs; the most I’ve touched in the last week is a cigarette. The cases, the work are...much more important.” _They help me stay focused, save me from self-destruction and boredom_ , he doesn’t say, but Lestrade spends a long moment watching him and Sherlock thinks the man may understand anyway.

_________

Sherlock gets stabbed. John and Lestrade fall behind during a chase, and soon he’s racing down alleys alone, wind whistling in his ears. His machinery is responding beautifully to the thrill (joints swinging open muscles contracting heart clicking out his steps CPU commanding his prosthetic limbs to move fast fast fast).

The culprit - Conrad - is just ahead; Sherlock can just barely see him in the dark but then Sherlock’s eyes close for a fraction of a second and the man is gone, figure indistinguishable from the other shapes around. Sherlock stops at the next junction, head swiveling as he peers down the two connecting alleys, trying to pick up the trail. His breathing is harsh in the relative quiet, and the sound of scuffling feet to his right makes Sherlock flinch away. It’s not enough: all Sherlock catches is a hulking shape in the corner of his eye, then a quick flash of revealed metal.

Sherlock gasps as the knife enters his abdomen, looks down in surprise. This is not his first injury (or even his first stabbing), but nothing has ever quite prepared him for the feeling of _wrongness_ that invades him, the complete lack of pain or blood because that is how machines work, the flickering of his vision if something important is hit. Sherlock fights against the impending black of a forced shut down, holding on with grim determination. Conrad is making his escape, and Sherlock’s mind rebels at the thought of letting him get away; stumbling, he follows, running into the wall when his balance sensors blink offline. Soon, his legs begin to give out, until Sherlock falls to the ground, hands still grasping.

 _No_ , Sherlock thinks, gritting his teeth. _No no NO_. He refuses to submit, and stubbornly holds on; he hears voices coming his way.

“John,” he calls weakly. John will go after Conrad. He must.

But John does not. Lestrade’s steps follow Conrad, and John drops down beside him, rolls Sherlock onto his back. John frantically curses under his breath, hands running over Sherlock’s body until they find the knife still inside him, handle sticking out of his gut.

“Oh Jesus, Sherlock, shit--”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock insists.

“It is not fine, you twat,” John hisses, terror making his voice tremble. “You need an ambulance, now!”

“Just...call...Mycroft,” Sherlock says emphatically, gripping John’s forearm. “I can’t go to hospital.”

“This is not the time to be stubb--”

“I’m _not_ ,” Sherlock growls, and with one hand shoves John’s away, taking their place over the wound. Something sparks as Sherlock wrenches the knife out, ignoring John’s curses(“What the fuck, Sherlock?!”) and then grabs John’s wrist, pressing his fingers to the gaping hole in his flesh.

“See? No blood. I’ll be fine,” he maintains, struggling with speech. “Call Mycroft. He’ll know.”

After that, Sherlock’s heart gives out, his brain following right behind, and the last thing he sees is John’s face, filled with horror.

_________

“Do you intend to tell him how you feel?”

“Intentional vagueness doesn’t suit you, Mycroft. Of course, neither does anything else.”

“Doctor Watson. Certainly anything is better than this quagmire of sentiment you’re in now.”

“I don’t have _feelings_ for John.”

“You are an atrocious liar, Sherlock.”

“...”

“Yes, you are. Particularly when it is yourself that you are lying to.”

“Going into psychology, now?”

“Think about it.”

“I _think_ you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“I must be going, now. I’ve a meeting, very important-- do try to stay out of trouble.”

_________

He is lying on his back when he wakes in a dimly lit room. Sherlock blinks, takes a hesitant breath, and begins a full system check. All his saved files are still in place: the filing cabinets and computers of his mind palace seem to be working quite well, for just coming back online. When Sherlock raises his hand to check over his wound, he’s surprised to find a cord that has been fed into the charging port on his wrist-- the last time he needed to be manually charged back to life was years ago, when self-destruction and obtainment of cocaine were his only goals. (Then, he despised Mycroft for bringing him back; now, something in him is vaguely grateful.)

He leaves the cord in his wrist and sits up. He recognises the impersonal decor of Mycroft’s guest bedroom, and leans closer to the bedside lamp to continue his investigation; his t-shirt (undoubtedly leftover from his last stay) is discarded, and Sherlock runs his fingers over where the knife had gone in. The skin is still slightly pink from the regeneration cream, but Sherlock is more interested in what’s beneath. His touch trails up to the seam that bisects his torso, then digs his fingers into the slight dip and pulls; his humanoid outside opens up with ease, and Sherlock’s robotic parts are exposed to the outside.

Everything appears to be in good shape; the complex gears of his heart click away as he watches, his imitation organs all undamaged. The wiring and nervous system control box the knife tore apart is replaced but so well done that Sherlock is quite sure he won’t have any issues with the new equipment.

And then the door swings open. Sherlock jerks his head up at the sound, a deer caught in headlights as his eyes meet John’s. Neither of them move, until John clears his throat and walks all the way through the doorway.

“So it’s true then. You’re a….you’re not a normal human.”

“I’m not human at all, John.”

John tears his gaze away and Sherlock watches as his jaw clenches.

“Mycroft told you, I presume,” Sherlock says, trying to sound calm.

“Yeah.”

“And now you know.” Sherlock pauses then continues as nonchalantly as possible. “I expect you’ll be wanting to terminate our flatshare. I know a man who’s looking for--”

“What?” John turns back to face him, steps closer. “I’m not moving out, Sherlock.”

“Of course you are. It’s obvious that you’re upset about discovering my true nature, and I highly doubt you’ll want to stay in Baker Street now.”

“I’m not upset because you’re made of mechanical parts!” John yells, then pulls his fingers into fists and takes a deep breath, eyes fluttering closed. A long moment passes where neither of them speaks, and Sherlock becomes painfully aware of the sound of his heart ticking out the moments.

“I’m upset,” John finally says, “because I had to find out from your brother, and only then because you’d been _stabbed_.” He comes to stand in front of Sherlock, and Sherlock looks up, certain his surprise is all too clear despite his blank expression.

“This is….unexpected,” he replies.

John looks down at Sherlock’s exposed insides. “Surely not. Surely you know by now that I’m in for the long haul.” His eyes reconnect with Sherlock’s, searching. “You daft man.”

“It--”

“No,” John says, determined. “For once, you listen. I….” John licks his lips, bites the lower one; Sherlock watches the movement avidly.

“You are the most brilliant person I know. And sometimes, yeah, we have a spat over one of your bloody experiments, and sometimes you’re unbelievably insensitive and harsh. But you are also the most _human_ human being I’ve met. You were...off, dead, whatever you want to call it for two days, while Mycroft was searching for replacement parts. I spent those two days alone, thinking, about all this, and you know what? It does not _matter_ , what you’re made of; it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t-” John pauses, inhales then releases. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m utterly mad for you, or that I plan to spend as long as I have left on this earth with you.”

“John. I’m not….sociopath is not an inaccurate description, considering my condition. I was not engineered to have emotion. I cannot feel love.”

“Bollocks,” John says severely. “Even if Mycroft hadn’t shown me some of the things your Father left behind, I could say that was a load of shite. I _know_ you, Sherlock. I’ve seen you with Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, hell, even Molly. Sometimes….sometimes I thought I might’ve even seen something when you sat on that bloody sofa, staring at me for ages when you thought I wouldn’t notice. So don’t you go telling me that you’re just a machine, that machines can’t love. Because I know you better than that.”

Sherlock can feel his hands shaking, and his heart is speeding up with fear and, possibly, hope.

“May I?” John asks, gesturing towards Sherlock’s open chest, and Sherlock nods, then watches as John’s outreached fingers hesitantly start forward. When they touch against the surface of Sherlock’s heart a shudder rips through him and his eyes close with the strength of all the feelings that are tugging at his thoughts, running beneath his skin.

John’s other hand comes up to cup Sherlock’s face, thumb rubbing against his cheekbone. “Open your eyes,” he says softly, and Sherlock opens them with trepidation, only to find John’s, full of adoration and certainty.

“John,” he whispers, and the past months come together in his mind, just like a breakthrough on a case. Moriarty’s thinly veiled comments, the fear that John would leave after, the inescapable _want_ for the solid touch of John’s arms around him, the certain press of his lips against Sherlock’s own. Nights spent trying to delete a longing he thought to be unattainable.

“There we are,” John says, lips lifting up in a half-smile. “Figured it out, then?”

“Yes,” Sherlock answers, still reeling, and John ducks down to press their mouths together.

John’s lips are warm, slightly chapped, utterly captivating; Sherlock’s hands come up, one going to the nape of John’s neck to pull him closer, the other covering John’s where it rests on Sherlock’s heart. Sherlock gets lost in the flood of data, in the pleasure of John’s lips against his own and then, after John tilts his head and coaxes Sherlock’s mouth open with soft, teasing licks, the taste and texture of his mouth, the shape of his teeth, the warm puffs of air that hit Sherlock’s skin.

“Brilliant,” John whispers. “God, you’re amazing, more than I could ever imagine,” he continues, and Sherlock greedily takes the words into his mouth, craving the way they feel on his tongue.

When John reluctantly pulls back to take a breath and brings their foreheads together, Sherlock leans into the touch and smiles.

“It appears I’m rather mad about you, too.”

Sherlock swallows John’s answering chuckle in another kiss, and the overwhelming rush of adoration that makes his heart increase its pulse under his and John’s hands is the most glorious thing Sherlock has ever known.

_I am ~~a machine~~ human._

 


End file.
